224 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1024 



orgaJiizations and educational institutions, 

 they must be relations of reciprocity. 

 This is a proposition which should be of 

 special interest to your organization, since 

 sooner or later you will be compelled to 

 consider it. Trustees of such organizations, 

 it is safe to predict, will not be disposed 

 to surrender their rights or to delegate 

 their duties. In this respect they will 

 doubtless be found to be just like trustees 

 of educational institutions. Biologically 

 the two groups belong to the same genus if 

 not to the same species, and under like 

 circumstances the reactions of either group 

 will be the same as those of the other. 

 And is it not plain that such relations of 

 reciprocity are the only permanently satis- 

 factory relations attainable? The widely 

 spread, if not prevalent, assumption that 

 research establishments are mere disbur- 

 sing agencies, waiting for suggestions of 

 appropriate ways in which to apply funds, 

 is creditable neither to those who entertain 

 it nor to establishments which accept it. 

 This assumption entails too readily the 

 futilities of amateurism, the dangers of 

 favoritism and all of the inefficiencies due 

 to division of responsibilities and to scatter- 

 ing of resources. Thus, while it is quite 

 true that a majority of the fundamental 

 researches of the past have been accom- 

 plished by individuals and that they will 

 continue to be so accomplished in the 

 future, it should nevertheless be the 

 primary purpose of a research institu- 

 tion to institute and to conduct re- 

 search; to take up especially those larger 

 problems not likely to be solved under 

 other auspices, problems requiring a degree 

 of organized effort and a continuity of pur- 

 pose surpassing in general the scope and 

 the span of life of any individual investi- 

 gator. Such institutions, like colleges and 

 universities, should expect to continue their 

 work forever, or, at any rate, so long as 



they are able to add to the sum of that sort 

 of knowledge which is verifiable and hence 

 permanently useful to mankind. 



But "how," it is often asked, and doubt- 

 less some of our colleagues here are now 

 raising the query, "are the requirements 

 of the worthy individual investigators in 

 colleges and universities to be supplied?" 

 To understand and to answer this question 

 rationally we need first to learn how to 

 distinguish endowments from incomes and 

 then to appeal to our knowledge of mental 

 arithmetic. An application of this much- 

 neglected branch of an ancient science will 

 quickly show that the income of no single 

 research institution now extant, or likely 

 to be founded, can come anywhere near 

 meeting the wants of the great army of 

 competent investigators now pressing for 

 financial assistance to forward their re- 

 searches. Indeed, neither in a single insti- 

 tution nor in all of those now existing 

 combined, nor in a score more of such, will 

 there be found sufficient funds to supply 

 the world-wide and rapidly growing demand 

 for them. "When we are ready to appre- 

 ciate these salient numerical facts we shall 

 be able to make the next step essential to 

 relieve at once the straitened conditions 

 under which hosts of worthy investigators 

 are now chafing and to respond more 

 quickly to the urgent demands of society 

 for obviously attainable and desirable im- 

 provements dependent on research. This 

 next step should consist, first, in an appeal 

 not solely to a few of the captains of indus- 

 try and the philanthropists whose wisdom 

 and benevolence have been so conspicu- 

 ously manifest in our day, but to the entire 

 class of such, whose aggregate number, as 

 long since proved by the experience of 

 charitable, educational and religious organ- 

 izations, is legion. If a small fraction of 

 the vast aggregate annual expenditures of 

 such organizations were devoted to research 



